The Son of Clemenceau | Page 7

was the soldier who was thrown off his
balance. A second blow, with the tremendous sweep of the stick held at
arm's length, tested the metal of the blade to its utmost, and, as the
wielder's hand was thoroughly palsied, drove it out of the opening
fingers, and all heard it splash in the black and pestiferous waters under
the bridge.
Von Sendlingen would almost have preferred the blow falling on his
head. An officer, whose reputation in fencing was no mean one, to be
disarmed by a student who swung but his road-cane! This was not all:
he had lost his sabre, and, noble though he was, he had to pass the
vigorous inspection of his weapons like the humblest private soldier!
The absence of the regimental sword might cause degradation, ruin
militarily and socially! And all for a "music-hall squaller"--and a
Jewess at that!

He ground his teeth, and his eyes were filled with angry fire. His face
bore a greater resemblance to a tiger's than a man's, and had not the
victor in this first bout possessed a stout heart, he might have regretted
that he had commenced so well, so terrible would be the retaliation.
All the animal in the man being roused, he longed to throw himself on
his antagonist to grasp his throat, but the successful use of the cudgel
against the sword indicated that this was an adept at quarter-staff and a
man with naked hands would have easily been beaten if pitted with him.
Sendlingen, warily and rapidly surveying the limited field of combat,
caught sight of the Jew's walking-staff and sprang for it with an outcry
of savage glee and hope.
On perceiving this move, in spite of the pain still crippling him, the old
man started to retrace his steps to regain possession of his weapon, but
he was soon distanced by the younger one.
Armed with this staff, the officer, remembering his student days, when
he, too, was an expert swinger of the cane, a Bavarian mountaineer's
weapon with which duels to the death are not unseldom fought, he
stood before the student.
"Had you been a gentleman," began the major, with a sullen courtesy,
extorted from him by the gallantry of his antagonist.
"A stick to a dog!" retorted the latter, falling into the position of guard
with an ease and accuracy which caused the other to begin his work by
feints and attacks not followed up too rashly, in order to test him.
This time, it was the stouter and more brutal man who played
cautiously and the younger and more refined who was spurred into
recklessness by the contiguity of the fair Helen--or, rather, Esther--who
had caused the fray.
The girl stood at the end of the bridge, opposite to Baboushka at hers,
there making them simple lookers-on. The old Jew seemed eager to
join in the struggle, but the staves were in continual swing, and he
could not draw near without the risk of having a shoulder dislocated, or,

at least, his knuckles severely rapped. In the gloom, his hovering about
the involved pair would have led an opera-goer to have seen in him the
demon who thus actively presides at the fatal duel of Faust and
Valentine.
But the conflict, whatever the major's wariness, could not be long
protracted, for canes of this sort are tiring to the arm, unlike
smallswords; he was still on the defensive when the student assailed
him with a shower of blows which taxed all his skill and nerve, and the
strength of the staff which he had borrowed from his foe. Well may one
suspect "the gifts of an enemy!" as the student might have cited:
"Timeo danaos," etc. At the very moment when the officer's head was
most in peril, while he guarded it with the staff held horizontally in
both hands separated widely for the critical juncture, it ominously
cracked at the reception of a vigorous blow--it parted as though a steel
blade had severed it, and the unresisted cane came down on his skull
with crushing force.
Out of the two cavities which the broken staff now presented, rattled
several gold coins. At the sight, the old hag scrambled toward where
the major had fallen senseless. The Jew, after picking up the broken
pieces of wood, would have lingered to recover those of the precious
metal though at cost of a scuffle with Baboushka. But his daughter
rebuked him in their language with an indignant tone, which brought
him to his senses in an instant. She seized him by the arm, and hurried
him away at last.
After a brief survey of the defeated man, wavering between the fear
that he had killed him and the prompting to see to his hurts, if the case
were not